VERSUS THE SCARECROW EPISODE 4: DOCUMENTARIES: THE QUEST FOR PEACE. I decided to challenge myself and really open the doors of my film knowledge and take on “The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide”. It’s 808 pages of movies and movie reviews from some of the most knowledgeable movie people you don’t know. It’s a book put together by a staff that praises, and destroys, some of our favorites and not so favorites. You can read the rest of my series here.
Just a quick refresher: each episode, I’m going to tackle three films from three different categories. Two films will be films I’ve never seen before and one will be one I’ve seen before or own. For the new films, well, new to me, I’m going to review them like a typical FTS review using the TOAST Rating system. But, for the films I’ve seen, I’m going give a quick paragraph or two about why I like or don’t like the film. We’ll try to include the poster and trailer for each film. “….and here. We. Go!”
Documentaries are films too and today is a special episode dedicated to them! I’ll be taking a look at some well known documentaries and some superbly controversial ones too as I look at Grey Gardens, Triumph of the Will, and Roger & Me.
Roger & Me (1989) Directed by Michael Moore. Starring: Michael Moore, James Blanchard and James Bond. IMDB says: “Director Michael Moore pursues GM CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the harm he did to Flint, Michigan with his massive downsizing.”
In Episode 103 on the French Toast Sunday Podcast, we discussed our favorite films from the year we were born. Being born in 1989, among the other spectacular films released that year, I chose a film that changed my mind on documentaries. That film was Roger & Me. It was one of the first enjoyable documentaries I had seen in sometime. Until then my only exposure to documentaries was through school. So to find one not only outside of school that I would enjoy was surprising and very welcomed. The whole idea of the documentary began to interest me. Knowing that there was no real script needed and all you had to do was grab a camera and watch life happen excited me. It raised my expectations with the films I watched, to reach a level of realistic dialogue that could, at the time, only be found in documentaries.
Roger & Me is about Michael Moore and his attempt to contact Roger Smith (GM CEO) to ask him about the harm he’s caused to Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan. Rather than focusing purely on GM he instead focuses on his native Flint and the Dickensian story that it’s become. It’s heartfelt and is a film you can watch over and over again. Sure Moore has gone on to tackle other subjects such as gun control, 9/11, the Iraq War, the healthcare system, and most recently, Wall Street but they all have that heart and the rewatachbility that you don’t often see in documentaries. Whether you enjoy his work or dislike it, you cannot deny the appealing imagery he uses and how he’s able to make the documentary format not only more available, but also more successful (the last four of his documentaries grossed nearly 180 million in US theaters alone). Roger & Me gave a much needed boost to documentaries everywhere, and without it, we would have spent this episode looking at Michael Bay films and NOBODY wants that.
You can read the rest of episode four where I reviewed Grey Gardens and Triumph of the Will. If you’re interested in more, you can find the rest of the Versus The Scarecrow series here.